Review: Season of the Witch [Blu-Ray]

(Image taken from cinemablend.com)

Oh, Nic Cage, Nic Cage, Nic Cage. I don’t even know where to begin with you. As a fan of you and not your general body of work, what can I say to a movie like Season of the Witch, where I barely even remember that you’re even in it, even though you’re the star of the film? I don’t know, man, I don’t know. But if you make another clunker like this and don’t totally wig out in it, I may have to take you off the “I’ll see him in anything,” list. Season of the Witch is seriously THAT bad.

The Movie: One star out of five

Not too long ago, I reviewed another ridiculous Nic Cage movie called Drive Angry. And while that was a piece of shit, at least Nic Cage pulled off one of his classic, bizarre (though not bizarre enough for my tastes) performances in it, so it made up for the movie’s overall awfulness. But in Season of the Witch -- and I’m not even sure what genre to categorize this movie in...thriller? Actioner? Period piece? Garbage? -- I barely even remember that Cage was in it. And that’s bad, because without the manic Nic Cage that his fans have come to expect when he does these money-grabbing trash flicks, what else is he good for? Not much, apparently, as Season of the Witch is beyond forgettable. I mean, for God’s sake, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) can’t even save it! And when you have both Ghost Rider AND Hellboy in a film together, and neither of them makes it worth watching, then you have a problem on your hands. And yes, Season of the Witch IS that problem. It’s a mess of a movie that’s offensive in how boring it is. In fact, I fell asleep while watching it three times. Three! I even had to drink coffee to finish the whole thing. For a Nic Cage picture, that’s inexcusable.

The main problem with Season of the Witch is that it crawls at an 800 lb. man’s pace. The story is about two Crusaders (Cage and Perlman) who have deserted their troop for moral reasons and go home to their motherland, only to discover it’s been affected by a plague. The reason for the plague? Well, a moribund Cardinal suspects that the Black Death has been the work of a witch. And…that’s the first time that I fell asleep. When I woke up, I rewound and found Cage and Perlman going on a quest to take this supposed witch (Claire Foy) to a monastery to prove her innocence or something of that nature, and then…I dozed off again. This is beside the fact that there was some action in between that was supposed to be exciting, but instead, wound up being lackluster and slow. When I woke up again, the movie was over. So I rewound again, and watched some more until I got to the end, where it REALLY got ridiculous with some clunky CGI fight. And guess what? Even while watching this final confrontation, I fell asleep. As I’ve said before, and I’ll say many times over again, action scenes are boring if you have no connection with the characters. And with Season of the Witch, I couldn’t care less about any of them. I couldn’t even stay awake for them for God’s sake, let alone feel worried about any of them dying. And that’s just sad. That’s some Michael Bay type filming there.

Again, though, if there’s any real disappointment with this film, it’s in Nic Cage, who doesn’t even put on any bee helmets or eat cockroaches. Instead, he dons some knight armor and doesn’t even try to fake some weird accent or ad lib any nonsense like he might have done in the past. Really, it might be sad to say, but maybe, that Nic Cage doesn’t even exist anymore. Maybe, he’s playing nice with all of his directors now just to make sure that he can keep landing roles and amassing enough money to pay off his bills. What I’m trying to say is this: I think he’s afraid to take as many risks now and let his freak flag fly. At least for clunkers like Season of the Witch, and that’s a shame, as this would be one of the best places for him to do something like that. It would have made this totally awful movie at the very least subpar. In fact, Season of the Witch could have actually been kind of fun if it wasn’t so damn serious, and Nic Cage was just the guy to take the edge off of it. But he didn’t, and that’s why it sucks. I’ll give him one more crappy movie, and then I’m done with his cash-grab flicks. A critic can only take so much.



The Disc: One star out of five

Thank God there’s no commentary on here, because I don’t think I could sit through this stinker more than once. Instead, on this Blu-ray disc, you get pointless “deleted scenes” that all deserved to get cut from the film (even though, LOTS of scenes that DID make the movie should have been cut as well). You also get a “Becoming the Demon,” featurette, which talks about that horrendous CGI at the end of the movie that I was talking about before. In the “On a Crusade” feature, it talks about all the yawn-inducing battle sequences at the beginning of the movie. And the “Alternate Ending” is just that, an alternate ending. Is it a better ending? No, no it is not. In fact, it’s equivalent to if The Sixth Sense had an alternate ending where Haley Joel Osment’s mother was also a ghost. So yeah, it sucks like that. There’s also a digital copy in the box so that you can watch it on the go, but mercy, why would you ever want to do that? It’s a bad movie with equally bad special features. Pass this one up like the plague.

Season of the Witch [Blu-Ray] Details
Length: 95 min
Rated: PG-13
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release Date: 2011-06-28
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Stephen Campbell Moore, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy
Directed by: Dominic Sena
Produced by: Alex Gartner, Charles Roven
Written by: Bragi Schut

Review: Drive Angry

(Image taken from cinemablend.com)

I’ll see Nicholas Cage in anything. An-y-thing. I don’t care if he’s playing two struggling writers who are brothers, or if he’s screaming against wearing a helmet full of bees, if Nic Cage is in it, it’s going to be a blast. That said, I’d much rather see him in the former kind of film (Adaptation) than the latter (the abysmal The Wicker Man). Drive Angry, unfortunately, is the latter kind of film, and it’s a shame, too, because Nic Cage gives it his all. Too bad his all can’t make up for a godawful script and an ass-picking plot.

The Movie: Two stars out of five

Nic Cage’s action-hero career has always perplexed me for two reasons. One: Nic Cage is a seriously talented actor, and when he does drama, he normally knocks it out the park, so why doesn’t he just stick with drama? And two: Nic Cage, despite how many times he might snarl or grow out his hair, has never really looked like an action hero at all. Sure, he was awesome in movies like Con Air, because, well, Con Air was awesome. But most times, whenever he straps on leather or shoots an absurdly large gun at something, it’s ridiculous. And it just doesn’t make any sense why he would waste his time with something like Season of the Witch, or this piece of garbage, when he has an Oscar sitting at home for Leaving Las Vegas. I just don’t get it.

With that out the way, let me tear this film apart. Drive Angry sucks because it’s not consistent with its excessiveness. Early on, the film gets it right by having Cage wearing sunglasses and delivering lines like, “Hell’s already walking the Earth,” before he blows up a car for no apparent reason. That’s cool! It’s also cool when he bangs some waitress while smoking a cigar. Vintage badass right there. But you know what? After those two scenes, it gets all talky and boring, and the plot takes a further downturn when William Fichtner, who plays a character called The Accountant, comes into the movie. He’s from Hell and he’s trying to bring Nic Cage’s character back to Hell with him. But every time he’s on the screen, you know something stupid is going to happen. Like him flipping a quarter in the air only for him to catch it and it turns into an FBI badge. A hur hur hur! You tricked me there, movie. Just awful. And the action is second-rate and pedestrian. In a movie like Machete, it went balls to walls at every scene. But in this movie, it’s all patched together shoddily, and the 3D techniques are stupid and abused. On a non-3D TV, it just looks like one big gimmick after the other. Pass.

(Image taken from: igossip.com)

What makes matters worse is Nic Cage’s character, John Milton. He can’t die since he’s already dead. This lowers the stakes tremendously, and you never worry if he’s going to make it or not because he can always just come back again if he dies. So what’s the point of caring? There isn’t one. Also, the bad guy in the film is so lame that they even had to put a soul patch on him just to make you hate him.

Overall, Drive Angry is a piece of shit. The only reason it’s getting two stars at all is because Nic cage is in it, and no Nic Cage film deserves a single star. Not even Next. And while this may not be the worst Nic Cage movie ever (Bangkok Dangerous has it beaten), it’s up there. See it if you’re a fan of Nic. But if you aren’t, toss it to the dogs.




The Disc: One star out of five

What would an awful movie be without awful special features? There’s commentary on here, but it’s a pain to listen to. The director, Patrick Lussier, had what sounds like strep throat or a cold when he recorded it, so it’s annoying to even listen to him. What. The. Hell? Did he and the co-writer, Todd Farmer, have to do it on that day when he was sick? Maybe they did, but you just wish they would have left the commentary off the disc altogether if they knew it was going to sound this bad. Also, they talk about absolutely nothing at all. They actually have the stones to say that the performances in this film (other than Cage’s) are even worth your time. Are they serious? What a joke.

There are also two deleted scenes, but they’re worthless. Obviously, they were tacked on just so some poor sap could look at the back of the box and think they were getting something worthwhile. Well, guess what? You’re not. Finally, there’s the “Access: Drive Angry” feature, which has pop ups of trivia during the film that so many of these damn Blu-rays are putting out there nowadays. It’s a lot of non-interesting tidbits, aside from the fact that the movie got its title from the far superior film, Groundhog Day. Rent Drive Angry if you like Nic Cage, but don’t buy it. If I haven’t said it enough, this movie is a piece of garbage and it should be obliterated from the Earth. Avoid, avoid. avoid. [Or you could just rewatch Groundhog Day. - Ed.]

You Have to Be "Uniquely" Ugly to Get Into Hollywood if You're Ugly

See that man at the top of the page? That man is ugly. Not Nic Cage ugly, but ugly all the same. And before you go and start saying, "You're not ugly." Stop. I know what I am and I'm not bitter about it. I've had 27 years with this ugly mug to know that I'm not winning any beauty contests any time soon. In the words of the great philosopher, Plato, I'm no prized pig. (He didn't actually say that, but I had you fooled for a moment, didn't I? No? Well, who asked you?)

But the thing is, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not Nic Cage ugly, and that, besides the fact that I can't act to save my life, is why I will never be a Hollywood bigshot. I'm just ugly. I'm not uniquely ugly. The truth is, if you want to get into Hollywood, you have to be a stud. And if you're not a stud--and you're not Dustin Hoffman or Tom Hanks, who define normal looking--then you have to be ugly. But again, you have to be uniquely ugly. Don't believe me? Then just check out the pics below and tell me that I'm not right.

Nic Cage
(Image taken from: contactmusic.com. This is his, "Der" face)

William H. Macy

(Image taken from: johnnycat.wordpress.com)

Danny DeVito
(Image taken from: digitalbusstop.com)

Philip Seymour Hoffman
(Image taken from: english.cri.cn)

And my all-time-fave uniquely ugly looking actor.

Steve Buscemi
(Image taken from: dir.salon.com)

There are dozens more. Can you name a few?